


we rise as we fall

by intrikate88



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/pseuds/intrikate88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the curse is broken, Belle and Rumpelstiltskin are the only ones still awaiting their happy endings. But love takes work, and happy endings are not inevitable, even outside of Storybrooke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we rise as we fall

And everyone lived happily ever after.  
  
True love’s kiss breaks the curse, and everyone gets their happy endings, or maybe it is the other way around. Regina has so much of herself invested in the curse that she is torn apart as it falls to pieces, burning everything in her wake. The land, the real land that is not Storybrooke, is scarred and broken, but the kingdoms remain, and their reinstated rulers can get back to their lives, even if there are patches of bad magic that nothing good will grow on for hundreds of years. Even though the entire world has changed twice, nothing has changed.  
  
Not Belle and Rumpelstiltskin, who find themselves tired and tattered at the gates of his estate. He uses a spark of magic to push them open, and then nearly falls over. They look at the dark castle. “What now?” he says, and unspoken is _after the lives we just left, and the lives before that_.  
  
Belle slings his arm around her shoulder, supporting him. “Well,” she answers, as they take a step forward, “your burns need treatment. And I need a home.”  
  
*  *  *  
  
“This is going to sting. A lot.”  
  
“You don’t have _any_ medical experience, do you?”  
  
“And you don’t have any magic that can do better than I can, do you?”  
  
“If you hadn’t rushed off, I would have never gotten burned in the first place!”  
  
“If you had actually had a plan that involved me not being locked in a cell until you found me and then forced to deal with you still pushing me away, maybe I wouldn’t have rushed off!”  
  
“Godsfuckingdammit, what are you doing with those tweezers? Digging for treasure?”  
  
“Getting out what’s left of your suit so your arm doesn’t rot off from practically being microwaved, before I put this salve on, and you better hope that it didn’t go bad after three decades in your tower. Which would only be fitting, since you did create the curse. At what point did that seem like a good idea to you?”  
  
“Let’s just say I had a bit of a downward, somewhat alcoholic spiral after you left me, dearie. And then apparently went and threw yourself off a tower.”  
  
“Oh? While we’re remembering things, how about why I left? Something about you telling me to shut the hell up, throwing me out, is this sounding familiar?”  
  
“Which I never would have done if you hadn’t done the one and only thing you could to betray me!”  
  
“Which would never have happened if you hadn’t been such a goddamned coward and actually told me something about yourself every once in awhile instead of pretending you were terrifyingly mysterious, oh big bad Beast.”  
  
He doesn’t answer that accusation as she spreads burn salve over his freshly debrided arm and then reaches for the bandages. The silence and echoes of coward hang in the air, along with the dust motes drifting through the sunlight.  
  
“Thank you,” Belle says quietly, “for pulling me away from the Queen. Before she, um, exploded. You’re lucky not to be dead.”  
  
“I hurt you enough for two lifetimes, Belle,” he replies. “It was hardly adequate to make up for that.”  
  
She tucks the bandage tightly in place. “It’s a start,” she says, and picks up the tweezers to turn to the other arm.  
  
*  *  *  
  
He sleeps late in the mornings while he heals. He does not expect to find hot tea near at hand, or the castle swept and dusted clean. But that is what he sees when he opens his eyes, as if his housekeeper has taken up like nothing ever happened.  
  
The fall back into what once passed for normalcy is quite possibly enough to drive him completely stark raving mad. If he could lift his arms properly he’d be at the wheel trying to spin away memory, but fate, that eternally cruel bitch, has not left him the option.   
  
He wonders if he can create a vacuum cleaner that runs on magic. He wonders if that would be one of the most tactless ideas he’s ever had in a lifetime of tactlessness. He drinks two cups of tea to fortify himself before going to find Belle, who is nowhere to be seen or heard.   
  
“The library,” he says when he finds her. “Predictable of you.”  
  
“I like the company in here,” she says, motioning towards the books.  
  
“I saw that you cleaned. You don’t have to. The deal doesn’t exist anymore.”  
  
“This is my home,” she replies simply. “I like it clean.”  
  
“Ah.” He hadn’t considered that. Presumptuous little thing. But then, she always had been. “I’ll leave you to your books, then.”  
  
“Before you go,” Belle starts, as he turns to leave, “I want you to answer a question.”  
  
He feels the accusations of everything he never told her before. It is time for that to stop. Long past time. “Anything, Belle.”  
  
“Everyone else in Storybrooke got their happy ending. Mary Margaret and David got together. Ashley and Thomas got married. Kathryn found... whatever his name was. Those orphan kids got a dad. Everything changed until it was so like our world that the curse was too thin to hold. So why were we left out?”  
  
“Because I left myself out of the curse I designed. Therefore, I wasn’t subject to the terms of its breaking. And  you... I don’t know, though you enacted some magic when you kissed me. And all magic comes with a price. Tying yourself to me might have been your price.”  
  
“You gave up your chance at love so that you could have power in that world, too.” It isn’t a question.  
  
“Old habits die hard.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then looks back at her, almost in pain at how piercingly blue her eyes are. “They’re even harder to break than curses. But they can be broken, if given a chance.” It is as close as he is able to come to a plea.  
  
She seems to understand that. “I’m here, aren’t I?”  
  
“You are, at that, Belle.”  
  
*  *  *  
  
She sees the castle as her home now. She ventures unhindered out to the nearby village, purchases things she wants; the market is a strange jumble now, of food and livestock and cloth and coffeemakers. Belle buys straw, has a few dresses made that fit her better than the old sundresses that arrived with her, a bottle of dish detergent which works better than lye soap, and a package of hair elastics. She had had some time to acclimate to a life and its conveniences that were far different from the ones here.   
  
She also gets a few books on the history of medicine, on electricity, and the women’s suffrage movement.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin raises a questioning eyebrow when he finds dishes of moldy bread in their kitchen. “Not your usual fastidious style, dearie.”  
  
“I’m attempting penicillin,” she replies. “And I found a few lightbulbs at the market. I’ve wired them into potatoes, over there.”  
  
The lightbulbs are giving off a dim, but steady light.  
  
“What... exactly... are you trying to do?”  
  
She ponders the question. There are a lot of responses. She had really liked washing machines. “I spent years, locked up, living in two worlds and being told I was crazy for it. I want to see what it’s like to live in two worlds and not be crazy.”  
  
“Do you think you can? Everyone else’s memories are fading by now. They’ll remember, but like it was a dream. They won’t want to have a foot in both worlds.”  
  
“I’m not everyone. And I’ll decide it for myself.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin shrugs. “You might want to keep an eye on that mold. Could be toxic.”  
  
“Well, the infected parts of your burns seem to be healing up nicely, don’t you think?”  
  
Belle watches him abruptly turn and leave the kitchen and laughs quietly to herself. He might be the king of shocking quips, but he seems a little too unsure if he’s found himself a queen.  
  
Although she actually wasn’t joking in the least, which is the funniest part of all.  
  
*  *  *  
  
They get a visit from Emma, and Belle pulls cold chicken, cheese, and a loaf of bread from the larder while she makes tea; it is a long journey from Snow and James’ kingdom. She’s wearing leggings and a tunic and carries a sword at her hip, which seems to strangely fit her very well.   
  
“No gown and retinue for the princess?” Belle asks. When Rum-- when Mr. Gold had unearthed Belle in the hospital and and then hobbled away like she might try to set him on fire, Emma had been the one to help her find a place to stay (with her and Mary Margaret at first, which was both fun and a strange game of not continually pointing out that it was so incredibly obvious that they were mother and daughter) and get her settled back into a life.   
  
Emma makes a face. “After a rough life in the foster system and working as a shiftless bail bondswoman, last stop Boston, our heroine discovers that she is the secret Princess Emma Swan destined to break a magical curse. The only thing I’m missing is a special birthmark and I’d be a particularly badly written bestselling novel. If I have to be a fairytale, I’m at least going to skip the ball gowns, thanks all the same.”  
  
Belle laughs, and pours herself a cup of tea. “I still wear my jeans sometimes. And I’m trying to collect all the important books that came through before they disappear. I don’t think we should lose everything.”  
  
“Twenty-four hour Thai takeout seems to be gone for good, though,” Emma says mournfully. “And my car. I liked that car.”  
  
“Poor yellow Beetle. It would have died on any of the roads here, though.”  
  
“It was never quite the same after I crashed it into the Storybrooke sign, anyway.”  
  
They have a small moment of silence in memory of the often run-over Welcome To Storybrooke sign. Regina had probably had to budget a small portion of town funds for continual replacement of the thing.  
  
“So what occasions this visit to our fearsome dark castle?” Belle asks, as Emma finishes her bread and cheese.   
  
“Only rumors had been heard of both of you since the curse broke, and Mary- and my mother and I wanted to see if you were okay, since we all got scattered everywhere. And she wanted to know if Gold- if Rumpelstiltskin was up to his old tricks. Since he did apparently just pull off a rather complicated and unnecessarily elaborate jailbreak from their dungeon.”  
  
Belle ponders. “It’s been an adjustment,” she says. “I was still getting used to being out in the world, and now I have to remember how this one works, as well. But I’m glad to be back here, where I was happiest, once. As for Rumpelstiltskin... he was badly injured protecting me as the curse came apart. I’ve been taking care of him.”  
  
“Fuck!” Emma exclaims, which Belle finds a bit of a non sequitur until she realizes that Emma is staring past her, at Rumpelstiltskin standing behind her chair.  
  
He comes around to Belle’s side, and gives a little bow. “Your highness, what an honor,” he says.  
  
“Mr. Gold?”  
  
“Yes, I know I look different without the cane and suit,” he says, his voice pitched higher and raspier than it ever was as Gold. “How are your _charming _ parents? I hear they’re complaining of empty dungeons.” He pantomimes losing a key.  
  
“Is this what he really looks like?” Emma asks Belle.   
  
“It’s a bit... complicated,” Belle answers.   
  
“Oh, what the hell isn’t?” Emma says. She looks up at Rumpelstiltskin, her forehead still wrinkled with bemusement but going ahead anyway. “And the king and queen are fine, thanks for asking. Having some sort of reuniting-the-kingdoms ball soon, which you are both invited to, with everyone invited adding the caveat that you’re to be on your best behavior if you do come.”  
  
“And the empty dungeons problem? I should say I more than made up for my past sins, recently.”  
  
“That’s why I wasn’t actually sent to drag you back. Plus, I saw your cell, and it’s shittier than the one I gave birth in. So I’m only supposed to see if you’re still making baby-stealing deals, or if you’ve just settled down into being an asshole.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin puts a hand to his heart. “My goodness, did it never even cross anyone’s mind that I might be a reformed.... well, not man...”  
  
“Nope,” says Emma. “Worlds change, people don’t.”  
  
“Yes, I see you’re certainly as cynical as ever,” Rumpelstiltskin observes. “Well, you can tell your mother that I’ve been perfectly behaved, been busy healing from burns received while keeping you sorry lot from being destroyed, and have not turned anyone into a snail this week despite having heard that the fishmonger completely overcharged Belle last time she went to town.”  
  
“So no babies?”  
  
He gestures towards Belle. “The mistress of the castle has decided to recreate the discovery of penicillin. There’s mold everywhere. That’s hardly a fit environment for an infant. She could create Ebola next week. Or worse yet, imagine she’s Marie Curie.”  
  
Emma looks from one of them to the other, clearly at a loss for how to understand them, even after the inexplicable ways they would act around each other in Storybrooke. “Then I guess if I ever hear about the Rumpelstiltskin daycare center opening I’ll just send health and safety inspectors over immediately,” she chooses to say.  
  
“Them, I might turn into snails,” Rumpelstiltskin says. Belle swats him on the leg.   
  
“Go away if you can’t be civil,” Belle tells him.  
  
“Are you two married?” Emma asks.  
  
“What?” The replies are simultaneous.  
  
“You’re definitely married.”  
  
“We’re not married,” says Rumpelstiltskin.  
  
“We’re the exception to the happily-ever-after rule.”  
  
“She’s too stubborn for me.”  
  
“And he’s an ass.”  
  
Emma holds up her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine, you’re totally and not at all even remotely a couple. I got it.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin sniffs derisively. “If this interrogation is over and you’ll excuse me, _your highness_ \-- ” Emma noticeably grits her teeth “--then I think I’ll return to my books and leave you ladies to catch up.” Another mock bow, and he departs.  
  
“Wow, and I thought he was an irritating dick when he was Mr. Gold.” Emma looks pointedly at Belle. “So what’s really going on between you two? He would barely breathe the same air as you in Storybrooke, while rescuing you repeatedly, and now you’re practically finishing each other’s sentences.”  
  
“It’s complicated.” Belle rubs a hand over her face. “Not in the sense that I don’t want to tell you. But really, really complicated.”  
  
“I had a baby in jail and then lied to my kid, who I gave to Regina, about who his dad was. Lay it on me.”  
  
Belle explains the deal that had originally brought her to Rumpelstiltskin. “And then he tried to kick me out, but I let him know I was leaving on my own. I was captured by the queen, and then you and him rescued me. I couldn’t figure out if he was still angry with me or if he didn’t want me used as a hostage, then the curse ended, and here we are.”  
  
“Do you love each other?”  
  
“I never stopped,” Belle says. “But that doesn’t mean I should be with him. He threw me aside because self-preservation was more important to him than loving me could be. I think we’re still finding out if I can want to save him, or if I can just want him. And he’s figuring out where I rank on his list of priorities.”  
  
Emma leans back in her chair. “As I’ve mentioned before, while horrifically drunk on all that red wine you brought home that time, I’ve got a lot more bad relationship stories than good ones. And I’ve spent too much time staying with guys who put everything but me first. They’re the ones that you should hit the road for and never look back. Not get hung up on everything you can do to fix them because there will always be one more thing to fix. But maybe if you can both let go of what you think your perfect happy ending is supposed to look like and just be who you are, it might be the right thing for you after all.”  
  
Belle smiles at her. It’s a slightly sad smile. “Most of my existence has been spent alone and locked up, by now,” she says. “I’m not even sure what I think a perfect happy ending is supposed to look like anymore.”  
  
“I made myself stop believing in them when I was ten and packing my clothes into a garbage bag again,” Emma replies. “I don’t know, either. Most of what I know of how to love, I learned from being around Henry. And that’s that love is when somebody has the option to leave you and forget about you, and then they don’t do it.”  
  
“We never forgot, at least,” says Belle.  
  
*  *  *  
  
“I don’t believe I ever apologized,” says Rumpelstiltskin one night, as they sit in front of the fire.   
  
“For what?”  
  
“For telling you to leave here in the first place.”  
  
Belle looks over at her companion. “I didn’t leave because you ordered me to,” she says. “I wasn’t some bauble you received in a trade that you could just throw out. I stopped and turned back.”  
  
“To call me a coward.”  
  
“To make you speak to me, not at me. To tell you that I loved you but that didn’t mean I would stay with a man who shook me, and cursed at me, and lied to me. Sometimes being brave means staying, and I did. And sometimes it means leaving, even if you don’t know what happens next. So I did.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin ruminates. He has lost much of the impish affectations he had before; they take too much energy, after everything he has lived through, when there is no one but Belle around. “Will you leave again?”  
  
“I don’t know,” she responds. “That depends on both of us. You are still afraid that my love can hurt you and weaken you. I still want to be the one to save you from this life you’ve made for yourself. But it seems we’ll destroy each other if that’s what we want most.”  
  
Neither needs to say that they’ve had enough of destruction, and certainly more than enough of destroying each other.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says carefully. “For all that I did to hurt you. For believing your love was betrayal.”  
  
“It’s already forgiven,” she replies. “But not for being a coward?”  
  
“I think that apology will have to wait until I’ve stopped.”  
  
“Perhaps.” She plays with the folds of her dress that pool in her lap. It’s odd, this conversation; it feels so rehearsed, but so new. They have both had too much time to have it in their heads, and now they have to have it without all the imaginary answers they found for themselves. “I’m sorry, too. You weren’t wrong, accusing me of trying to be a hero. I thought I was doing the right thing, changing you into a man. But I never asked you. I’ve been drugged and beaten and locked up without anyone telling me why, just to change me. That’s a terrible fate, to have your choice stolen from you. So now I understand what happened that night. And you have my apology, for that.”  
  
He slips out of his chair to kneel by hers, and takes her hands in his. “You didn’t know. You couldn’t have known.”  
  
“I don’t want that. Those excuses. You were wrong to have done what you did, but... but not to be angry, I don’t think. And for all these years, I’ve wanted your forgiveness too. Because I was wrong not to ask you about magic.”  
  
“If it’s forgiveness you want...” he says slowly, as if the idea is nigh on incomprehensible, “then it’s yours.” He can remember the night, the horrible agony of having become vulnerable without realizing it and then having it all ripped out of him, sure only that she could never have done that by accident. “Your stubborn old Beast hadn’t known love for a long time.”  
  
“I know. I knew that then. And I forced it anyway.” She grips his hands. “I propose a new deal, Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
“I don’t know that I’m still in that business.”  
  
“Maybe you’ll like this one. The deal is, we start fresh. We leave behind that we were housekeeper and master, how we betrayed and hurt each other. And I will not be a hero who is too eager to rescue you, in exchange for you not running away from love. My love for you, or yours for me.”  
  
He answers, with a ghost of a smile and an echoed warning from another era, “It’s forever, dearie.”  
  
“Promise me that you’ll try. And I’ll give you my word.”  
  
“It’s a deal,” he says, standing, and pulling her to her feet, “I promise.”  
  
“Then I do, too.”  
  
He wraps his arms around her waist and she tucks her chin into his shoulder. It is no kiss. He is not ready, and neither is she. But something is there, something that hadn’t been there before.   
  
Something better.  
  
*  *  *  
  
Their new truce is awkward at first, and difficult to follow. They eat breakfast together, and when he comes downstairs she says, “Good morning. I love you,” and he stands stiffly, resisting the words until he remembers: he will not automatically shun those words. “I love you, too,” he answers, “would you like me to pour your tea?” It does not feel normal, but he will make it so. He rests a hand on hers as they eat, because he can.   
  
She resists the urge to stop bringing him straw. His arms have finally healed enough that he can spin again, and he does so, the hours slipping through his fingers like the carded fibers. She doesn’t want to see him withdrawing, trying to forget. But his choice to push his pain away with mundanity is not hers to question, and it isn’t as if she doesn’t understand the urge to quiet the darkness that stirs restlessly in the back of the mind. After the hospital, she had pills Dr. Hopper gave her to keep her shadows from overtaking her, and now those are gone, a world away. (The first two weeks without them had been so, so hard.)  
  
They both still have open wounds, and the deal requires them to both expose them and to resist poking each other’s. In such close proximity, it is no easy task. They walk together in the garden every day, letting the sun soak into them as they haven’t in an eternity.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin and Belle talk.  
  
“The Dark One still lives inside me,” he says. “Stronger than it was in Storybrooke.”  
  
“Well, you do have your magic back.”  
  
“It’s more than that. It is a power with its own... desires. It likes to dominate. The last man to be the Dark One was used by a ruler to conscript child soldiers, in the war. That man couldn’t bear it anymore, after a time.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Belle asks.  
  
“He tricked me into murdering him to be rid of it. It saved my son from being dragged off by soldiers. But not from me.”  
  
Belle takes his hand, silently. She has seen the boy’s clothes, still reverently folded, upstairs and carefully preserved. She wishes she couldn’t imagine the kind of trapped desperation that would make a person try to get someone to kill them, but she can.  
  
“I gathered my own power, my own influence after that. Made people owe me. I never wanted to let the Dark One’s power be used by someone like that old king.”  
  
“Or like Regina,” Belle adds.   
  
“Especially her.”  
  
“Good thing she never had it, then.”  
  
“But I still do, and will until I die. I wasn’t a good man, not even before I became the Dark One. A coward. Also an arsonist.”  
  
Belle comes around on the path to stand before him, forcing him to stop. She reaches up to place a hand on his cheek. “But you loved your son. More than you loved being respected for bravery. More than you loved loyalty to your king. You loved _him_.”  
  
“Bae. Baelfire. That was his name.”  
  
“You are capable of love, Rumpelstiltskin. The kind you had for Bae. The kind that heals. The kind that makes you stronger than the Dark One.”  
  
He places his hand over hers, takes it away and holds it tight. “And if it doesn’t? If the Dark One fuels my rage over something?” He wraps his hands around her wrists, and holds them up. “You’re all alone in the castle with me, dearie. Trapped with the beast even the Queen couldn’t destroy on her best day. I’ve killed people without even using the slightest hint of magic.”  
  
Belle doesn’t struggle, doesn’t try to free herself. “You’re trying to frighten me. But you’ve forgotten, that never worked. All you’re saying is that you’re frightened. Of the nightmares of seeing me dead and broken again. Or an empty shell in the hospital.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin lowers their hands, and slides his down to grasp hers, no longer threateningly. “Yes. That is all I am saying. Because you deserve to have me tell you why I’m a coward with you.”  
  
“And that is how,” Belle says, leaning over to kiss his cheek, a gesture that will harm neither of them, “we are both becoming brave.”  
  
*  *  *  
  
She uncovers all the mirrors. The Queen no longer spies through them and they reflect sunlight around the castle. Rumpelstiltskin, of course, complains that he is blinded. Belle only laughs. “Imagine, if we lit all the chandeliers, it would be bright as day at night. We could have our own ball, here. Like... like that old French emperor, in the other world. It sounded magical.”  
  
“You live in an actual magic palace,” he growls, “what more do you want?”  
  
“A washing machine, at the very least. Maybe the occasional guest for supper. I met some lovely dwarfs once. I think one has a fairy girlfriend he could bring.”  
  
“I don’t like fairies.”  
  
She smiles at him, pinching her lips together to try not to make it so obvious. “You don’t like anyone.”  
  
“Absolutely true. However, I might like you enough to make you a magic washing machine.”  
  
“That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Not only would there be the usual problem of your trousers shrinking, my stockings might turn into gnomes.”  
  
“I don’t think you can run one off of your potato-based electrical circuits.”  
  
“There must be some way to do it. I’ll have to research.”  
  
While she does that, Rumpelstiltskin goes to the village, and then to the next village and the one after that, searching their markets for junk. He wishes he could have tracked exactly where the appliance store landed; its owner had been one of the gypsies, always confused as to why he was so relieved to have a whole shop to store his wares in. But there was no tracking gypsies, who had magic of their own. Some could even travel through the worlds on their own; he knew of the Roma of Europe whose presence had nothing to do with Regina’s curse.  
  
Eventually, though, he finds a generator, and an almost-new washer, only slightly dented. One lucky stop yields water hoses and extension cords. He really, really hopes that making electricity with magic is not the easiest way to get electrocuted.   
  
Especially because it appears no manuals for these models of washing machine and generator have fallen through the cracks in the universe.  
  
It is when he is walking back (having sent his purchases on ahead) that he feels a small twinge in his chest. Not a physical one, but something else. He pauses. Perhaps it was physical after all; a bit of indigestion? The meat pie he had bought off a cart in the last town had looked a bit suspicious. He was immortal, mostly immune to all but the most grievous of bodily harm, but it didn’t mean heartburn was impossible. The spot of pain doesn’t recur, so he walks on, forgetting about it to ponder where to put the washer so it can draw off the well and so the generator isn’t indoors, where it could explode.   
  
He is back at the palace by dusk, and Belle greets him at the door with an embrace and flushed cheeks. She’s wearing jeans and a light blue blouse that’s smudged with dirt. “I’ve been sorting,” she says. “Your pawn shop was essentially turned upside down and dumped out into some of the upstairs rooms we don’t go into often. I’m trying to figure out what’s broken, and where things should go. And what will need to have the bucket of lanolin cleaned off them. I’ve been trying to lock all those things into a closet to deal with the smell.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin winces. “Bugger, did that open up? I should have known to get rid of it when the curse seemed on its way out. It’s flammable, I hope you’re not lighting candles near it.”  
  
“I know,” Belle says levelly. “Emma told me about the sheriff’s election. You mentioned arson in your past?”  
  
“Yes, which is why I want you to leave the fires to me, dearie, I’m much better at them.”  
  
“I will try not to burn the castle down, if you insist. I didn’t make anything for supper, I’ve been so busy.”  
  
“I didn’t want you to go into the kitchen anyway. I have a surprise. Perhaps. If it works. I’ll bring something up to you, I already ate and I think it was a mistake.”  
  
“A surprise?” Belle looks torn between excitement and suspicion.   
  
“It will certainly be a surprise if it functions,” Rumpelstiltskin says.   
  
“Alright, I’ll leave you to your mysteries. Should I be listening for explosions and magnificent swearing?”  
  
“Yes, actually, and perhaps grab a broom and something dry to stand on if you must come running.”  
  
She shakes her head. “You could have just gotten me a pony. Ponies don’t explode.”  
  
“Want to bet?” he asks darkly.  
  
“No. No, I don’t. I want to go upstairs now, and I want to try to figure out what the hell we’re going to do with a windmill, and I want to know why you kept a cello at your house but that can wait.” She turns to go back upstairs, then turns back to him. “And I love you for going to the effort of making a surprise for me,” she adds, pecking him on the cheek. Then she trots back upstairs, and his gaze follows her, his little strange woman, dressed for another world. He loves her, he thinks, and the thought is beginning to ache less than it once did, when the brief pleasure of affection would always give way to the cold arthritic pain of inevitable loss.   
  
He goes to the kitchen, to find what leftovers he can bring to Belle and to see what he can do with the generator in the absence of the diesel on which the label says it should run.  
  
*  *  *  
  
Belle polishes a silver candelabra with a rag, glad to finally have the pile from the middle of the room sorted into some sort of order. What she’ll do with that order, she doesn’t know, but it’s enough to create an interesting museum, with the proper display cases, to fill the castle’s top floor.   
  
Except for one object, which she is fairly certain should never have a display case.  
  
She had found it under a pair of boots, a wooden rocking horse, a nutcracker, a tiny hat, a bent fork, a marionette frame with no puppet, a leather coat, and a sewing kit. It was a dagger, decorative-looking but sharp to the touch. It had Rumpelstiltskin’s name etched on it. She sat on the floor, her hand wrapped around its hilt, for a long time, just staring.  
  
This, she was sure, was the Dark One’s dagger. The one that it would have been unthinkable if Regina had gotten her hands on it. And it was just lying on the floor with the rest of the detritus, like so much meaningless driftwood. Careful not to touch the blade, she had found a scrap of brocade and wrapped the knife in it. Then she took it to her room, and put it on the top shelf of her wardrobe. It should be locked away and buried, she thought. But she didn’t know where, and as she heard the sound of Rumpelstiltskin’s return downstairs, she shut her wardrobe and ran to greet him, resolving to keep an eye out for a better place to hide it. Somewhere safe.  
  
But no place has occurred to her yet, so she keeps polishing the silver. She hopes to find some candles for this piece soon; it will make a nice addition to her room, for when she has to get up in the night.   
  
“So this is what’s left of my shop, eh?” says Rumpelstiltskin from behind her, surveying the wreckage. He’s carrying a tray with a pot of tea, a cup, and a sandwich cut into squares, which he sets on one of the several tables next to him. “Have to say, it’s hard to see them like this, after all the time I spent in that shop. Thirty years, and it’s all gone like a child’s snowglobe.” He steps up to her and slides an arm around her waist. “But worth it.”  
  
Belle rests her head on his shoulder. “I’ll help you put it all back together again.”  
  
“I’ve no doubt of that.” He kisses the top of her head. “Now drink your tea and eat something.”  
  
“I’m not here to be ordered around anymore,” she teases, looking at him.  
  
“No, I think you’ll remember that you’re here to be served tea by someone who loves you,” he answers her. “See how I’m learning?”  
  
“Is it harder than learning contract-writing?”  
  
“I don’t remember. That got easier after awhile.”  
  
“And so will this.” She reaches around for her cup of tea. “Attraction, feelings; those are easy. Loving again when it’s left you battered and bruised before is a choice. Because the other option is to run scared out the door before you get left behind again.”  
  
He is silent a moment. “Sometimes I want to.”  
  
“Me too.”  
  
He pulls her more tightly to his side, and she sets down the cup of tea to wrap both her arms around him, and they look at the washed-up assortment of the pieces of their lives.  
  
*  *  *  
  
First came the excitement, and then the suspicion, much like when he had announced he had a surprise in the first place. “No more washboards and boiling water over the fire!” Belle had enthused. “But how does it work?”  
  
“Like a washing machine usually works, dearie.”   
  
She bumps his arm with her elbow. “You know what I meant. We’re a little too far out for the power company, out here. Am I going to have to worry about dyeing your shirts pink and having them come out singing and dancing?”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin shudders. “Gods, no. There was a sorcerer who enchanted his mops and buckets to sing and dance, and flooded his castle... or so I heard, the story was rather jumbled. Plus, I’d rather not have the Greek chorus bursting out of my wardrobe every morning.” He leads Belle through the kitchen door out to the back garden, where he shows her the wiring and tubing coming through the wall and leading directly to a generator and water-butt. It is nearly summer, and she wears a floral sleeveless sundress, her legs and shoulders exposed to the sunlight and her bare feet sinking into the garden soil. She could find herself at home in any world.  
  
“I did enchant the generator into running without diesel, though I think I’ll have to oil it regularly to keep it from burning out. You just have to turn it on a few minutes before you start the wash. And the water comes from a line to the well. I can’t promise it will fill very quickly, but it should work alright once you get it started. I did try it out to make sure it wouldn’t explode.”  
  
“I could kiss you,” Belle breathes. Rumpelstiltskin inhales sharply, and Belle whips her head around. “I won’t! I just mean, I’ll finally have clean clothes, really clean. I got used to them in Storybrooke. Even my hospital gowns were bleached. Probably the only thing I miss about that horrible place.”  
  
“Simply promise me you won’t shrink my breeches.”  
  
“Absolutely not. If you give me a washing machine that is powered by magic, I take no responsibility for what it does to your breeches.”  
  
“I suppose I must accept that as fair,” he grumbles.  
  
“Yes, you must. Now, I’m going to start this thing and figure out how to make it work, and what I’ll use for detergent, and _you_ go upstairs and get everything out of my wardrobe and the sheets off my bed.”  
  
The words are barely out of her mouth before he’s gone back inside to get her laundry. She places both hands over her mouth to suppress a giggle. It’s such a ridiculous thing to be so delighted about. But it is a perfect picture of all she wanted to bring together as a totally sane and happy person: her castle, her beloved, her useful appliances from another world that she had grown to love as her own. She feels the sunlight in her hair as she flips the switch on the generator and turns the spigot on, then walks back inside, brushing the dirt off her feet first to avoid scattering it all over the clean tiles, to figure out the soap problem. She finally settles on finely slicing off pieces of the bar of lye soap; it is harsh, but it will dissolve, and it will definitely clean clothes. By the time she is finished, there should be enough power generated, enough water drawn up.   
  
But Rumpelstiltskin has not arrived with her clothes, and it has been more than enough time.  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin?” she calls up the stairs to the main hall. He may be able to hear her upstairs, too. “Rumpelstiltskin, where are my things?”  
  
“I have everything from your wardrobe right here, dearie,” he says, his voice coming from the main hall. His voice sounds odd, higher, more inhuman. It sounds like it did when she first met him, and not at all as she’s come to expect. “Including something I don’t think you’ll be washing. Why don’t you come up here?”  
  
Something is wrong. She can feel it. Her stomach is churning, and the shadowy whispers of panic that she had thought she had left in a basement psych ward play at the edges of her vision. Belle stumbles outside to turn off the generator and the water.   
  
And then Belle trudges up to the main hall, soap flakes still wedged under her nails and her feet still bare, to face whatever is next.  
  
Because bravery means not running out the back door when you know something is so very, very wrong.  
  
Or maybe that’s just stupidity.  
  
*  *  *  
  
When she had told him to get her clothes, Rumpelstiltskin’s body went ahead to do so before he was even conscious of making the decision. He was distracted, he knew. Her smile, the way the sunlight turned her hair to fire, the delight at this too-simple gift was all enough to stop his thoughts. He could live in that moment.  
  
But he had to go upstairs. He had to get everything out of her wardrobe. So he gathered an armful of her dresses, her blouses, her pair of jeans. He was not incredibly familiar with her room; he liked to leave her a place of her own. He pulled her stockings, and more delicate attire, from the drawers at the bottom of the wardrobe. A pile formed on the bed, that he would wrap the sheets around and carry it down in a bundle. He reached for the shelf at the top of the wardrobe, in case anything up there needed washing, and his hand fell on something hard and wrapped in fabric. He didn’t need to see it to feel what it was.  
  
The sensation of having been kicked sharply in the chest and left breathless got Rumpelstiltskin all the way down to the main hall with her bundle of laundry before he stopped himself. He gripped the edge of the table, always so well dusted and shined. To keep from moving, he gripped so hard his fingernails bit into the wood.  
  
It had happened again. The rage was rising up in him, rising up to fuel the dark magic that he held, that he _was_. There was no queen’s trickery to blame this time. He wasn’t interested in hearing her explanations. As soon as she came through the door, he would turn her into a wooden doll. He would toss her in the fire, and he would forget about her. Forever.  
  
“Rumpelstiltskin?” she calls from the kitchen. He answers her. Her voice is unchanged, and reminds him that a few short minutes ago, the sun was in her hair and she was overflowing with the delight that he had brought her. And so he sits down heavily. It takes her an eternity to come up to the hall. He thinks it might be less painful just to sink his hands into his chest and pull out his heart and be done with it, already.   
  
Finally, she stands in the doorway, wiping her hands on her skirt. The delight is gone from her face. “What’s wrong?” she asks.  
  
“Come a little closer, dearie. If you’re so unafraid of your Beast.”  
  
Her spine stiffens. She’s being _dignified_. The little traitorous bitch thinks she has room for dignity. She walks forward to stand before him, a hand resting on the table. She could be the same gold-gowned woman she was lifetimes ago; the little sundress brushing her knees makes no difference. “Tell me what’s wrong, Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
He holds up the dagger. “You told me to get everything out of your wardrobe. It appears you forgot this was in there, or else you never would have commanded me, would you?”  
  
She sucks in a breath, leans heavily on the table. “No!” she says.  
  
“Well, it’s a wee bit late for that. I’ve discovered your little secret, haven’t I? Too tempting, to live with the Dark One and not try to control his powers, hmm?”  
  
“That’s not it at _all_!” she spits, and... the lust for cruelty in him pauses. There is nothing defensive in her tone. Belle goes on. “I found it while cleaning, just laying around. I put it where I thought it would be safe until I could find someplace to hide it. Someplace no one would ever find it, so nobody could ever control you. It wasn’t a secret. I just was doing other things and didn’t come running to you immediately, because Regina’s _dead_ , and none of our enemies have time to find you, and I just wanted one damn day where we could forget everything and live our lives.”  
  
“Best intentions, is that what you had?”  
  
“No intentions to harm you, at least not up until now, when I want to slap that _fucking_ sneer off your face. And no intentions to ever control you.”  
  
It’s the strength of her swearing, actually, that cuts through the howling inside him. She would lie with a sympathetic smile, or a pitiful entreaty. He can recognize a desperate soul; there is a desperation that has ripped hers raw. Spitting invective is not her choice of communication.  
  
“And yet,” he says, setting the knife down, “you did control me. Without even a thought. Do you know how powerful possessing this dagger is?”   
  
“I didn’t want power,” she whispers. “I just wanted to keep you safe.”  
  
“Safe,” he mutters bitterly. “Just like when you wanted to break my curse. Turn me into a man again. Do you think a man’s body can hold the Dark One? Do you think your pitiful old man with the bum leg can withstand a demon inside him?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“And neither do I. Magic isn’t a toy. It’s barely a tool. Sometimes intent matters. But not always.”  
  
He bows his head. The rage is ebbing away as quickly as it came, leaving emptiness in its wake. Not emptiness: a vacuum, one that sucks at him painfully. They had had a deal. That he would stop defending himself against loving her. That part, he thought, had worked. He had taken down his defenses, and she had walked all over the rubble and thoughtlessly plucked what she could hurt him with most.  
  
Again.  
  
He hears the rustle of fabric; Belle has seated herself on the table. “The deal isn’t working, is it?” she asks slowly. “I tried to be the one to save you, and forgot the cost to you. And you instantly believed I betrayed you, because holding onto your walls and not stopping to consider it was an innocent mistake made in love was easier. Just like before. Just like we agreed to not do.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin stares down at his name on the knife. He can see himself enraged, smashing china against the wall, thirty years ago. Thirty years to learn from their mistakes, and they’ve learned nothing at all. “We’ve both broken our sides of the deal. Into several pieces.”  
  
He looks up at her. Belle’s mouth pinches shut, sympathetic and sad and burdened with fate. She digs the palms of her hands into her eyes for a few seconds, but there are no tears when she draws them away. “Then that’s it,” she says. “I have to leave.”  
  
He wants to protest. He wants to tell her he regretted her leaving about a minute after she passed the outer gates. Losing her yet again, this time truly for good, will be an unbearable pain. But, despite that, he can’t see how she’s wrong. They are perfectly fitted to cause each other hurt.  
  
“I know,” Rumpelstiltskin says. “Where will you go?”  
  
“Somewhere far enough where we can’t keep up this pattern of endlessly hurting each other. Just one big hurt, and then it’s over. But for now... I have time to gather my things, and I can be to the nearest inn by nightfall. After that... maybe Emma can find somewhere for me. I did want to see the world, after all.”  
  
He rests his face in his hands. It’s over. They’ve lost. He had stayed so far away from her in Storybrooke, so sure that an even worse version of their story would play out in that cursed town, just like everyone else’s. But their secluded castle, free of their enemies, turned out to be the most dangerous of all. Too strong and brave to be destroyed from without, they could only be broken from within.  
  
He doesn’t look up when Belle quietly slides off the table, begins gathering her things from the laundry bundle on the floor, and goes off to find a knapsack.  
  
*  *  * 

  
Belle’s feet lead her mechanically all over the castle. A bag, for her clothes to be carefully rolled up and put in. To the kitchen, for food for the road. The washing machine is still open and she quietly closes the lid; she will never use it, now. Her cloak she tucks through the arm straps, and puts on a more suitable dress and boots for walking. It is past noon. She has at least three hours to walk. She should get to the inn in time.  
  
She thinks about journeys and preparations. She doesn’t think about  _him_.   
  
She puts on a belt, with a small purse (only a few coins near to reach; nothing worth stealing, though she is bringing more money hidden beneath her clothing) and a sheathed dagger. There is no way that she knows to get a message to Emma to meet her somewhere; damn the lack of telephones. There aren’t even functioning magic mirrors.   
  
No. Not thinking about magic.  
  
She locks the kitchen door to keep out wildlife, with one last lingering glance at the herbs in the garden, just beginning to send up shoots; she had been looking forward to fresh tarragon. Nothing in the orchard is ripe yet, or she would gather apples to take with her.   
  
This place has become her home, and that’s when the tears threaten. Belle blinks them away fiercely.  _She will not cry_. Not until later. She rests a hand on the kitchen table, the hearth crane, the hanging bundles of dried herbs, saying a silent goodbye to each one of them in turn. She exits into the great hall, stopping to rub her fingers over the spinning wheel’s spindle. Perhaps its well-worn surface will bring her luck.   
  
And then it is time, and she can put off her journey no longer. It is time to leave home and go out into the world to find her place in it. She has done it before. Resolute, Belle lifts her chin, and the hall’s doors open before her.  
  
The front doors of the castle are closed, and Rumpelstiltskin is standing there. She swallows.  
  
“Did you come to say goodbye? It really wasn’t necessary.” When did her voice start sounding so bitter, she wonders. “I think we’ve had enough of those. Or did you have another reason?”  
  
In response, he pulls his dagger from its sheath. “Another reason,” he says, holding it out.  
  
He’s not going to let her leave here, she realizes. She is too great a danger to him.   
  
“I don’t want to let you walk out of here again, Belle,” he says, and she knows she’s right. Was there a happy ending for any of Bluebeard’s wives?  
  
Rumpelstiltskin lightly tosses the knife into the air, and it catches the light, flashing, as it turns. He catches it by the blade, avoiding the edges. He is holding it out to her, hilt first.  
  
“What are you doing?” she asks.  
  
“Take it,” he says.  
  
She steps back. “I won’t take magical things from you again.”  
  
He steps closer. “There is a difference between stealing a kiss or collecting a lost item, and a gift, freely given. I won’t watch you leave again, just so that I can ensure nobody has power over me. I am not going to be a coward.”  
  
Gingerly, she takes the dagger. She could command him. She could kill him and have his power. The simple steel blade, with all its potential, terrifies her. “I will not command you again.”  
  
“Do as you wish with it. I am yours.” His face is tense. “I’ve been without you so many times now, and I assure you, it’s a far worse fate.”  
  
Tears prick her eyes again. “I don’t know what I am supposed to do with this.”  
  
“Whatever you want, Belle.” He tilts his head. “There is one more way I need to stop being a coward.”  
  
With a step, he closes the gap between them, and lifts her face to his. He only hesitates half a second before settling a kiss on her lips, feather-light at first, and then more certain. She does nothing, remembering the last time. But he does not jump away, so she drops the dagger with a clatter to the stone floor, and wraps her arms around his neck. “What are you doing?” she murmurs against his lips.  
  
“I don’t know,” he murmurs back. “But that was no reason not to try.”  
  
She slows their kissing, presses one last kiss to his lips, and steps back. “Please don’t be un-cursed. Please don’t die,” she whispers. Her experience was limited, but that felt like a goodbye kiss.  
  
But he stands before her, his skin mottling and changing. His hair is less tangled; his skin, less scaly. She puts a hand to his cheek, feeling soft, human skin. Rumpelstiltskin is beginning to resemble Mr. Gold. He does not look like a rhino’s hide. She wonders if she’ll see the Dark One burst out of his body at any second. “Are you alright?” she demands, urgently pulling at his arm.  
  
He lifts a hand, a human hand with human nails, to stare at it. “I think I’m fine,” he said. He grins at her, a genuine grin with no hint of mossy gold teeth, and grasps her face to kiss her again. “Better than!” He shifts a little. “Did leather always chafe this much?”  
  
She picks the dagger off the floor. “I know I said no commands,” she says sternly, brandishing it at him, “but  _don’t die_!”  
  
He lets out a true Rumpelstiltskin chortle and grabs her around the waist, lifting her off her feet to spin her around. “As you wish, Belle!”   
  
“But how-” she says breathlessly, once he puts her down again, “how are you alive without your power?”  
  
“Because I  _do_ have it. It comes from you. The Dark One feeds on fear. It can’t fight me when it’s starving!”  
  
She smiles, giddily, and kisses him again, because she can. “Well, I suppose I can’t leave now, can I?” she asks. “Someone needs to keep an eye on you, and this dagger. And keep my home from getting dirty.”  
  
“Yes, you’re certainly not going to get a castle anywhere else,” he tells her.  
  
“My silly Beast,” she says, wrapping her arms around him and resting her forehead against his. “I never needed a castle. Home is wherever I’m with you.”  
  
*  *  *  
  
The clothing from her rucksack goes straight into the laundry, and the next load is sheets. She digs around in a few closets, and finds clothespins, laundry line, and a locking metal box. In between hanging up clean laundry, she digs a hole in the garden, and buries the dagger, in the locked box, beneath the generator. With her hands, she scoops a few holes and moves half a dozen lavender plants to the spot she had recently dug up.   
  
Rumpelstiltskin greets her at the kitchen door after the last load of sheets is hung up in the sunshine. “It’s safely hidden,” she says. “Nobody can tell you to do anything.”  
  
“Tell me to kiss you,” he replies.  
  
“Kiss me, Rumpelstiltskin.”  
  
He must follow her orders, but she will make sure that is the only one she ever gives.  
  
*  *  *  
  
“Uh, Mr. Gold?” Emma asks. She’s in a ball gown, wearing a tiara, sipping champagne, and a merry bluebird has just flown off with one of the flowers woven into her hair. In short, it’s so twee that Belle wonders if Snow and James drugged their daughter. Rumpelstiltskin’s new look certainly could not be helping her confused mind.   
  
“Still Rumpelstiltskin, your highness. Though I don’t object to Mr. Gold.”  
  
“Your, uh, limp seems to be better,” she says weakly, gesturing in the general direction of his legs and then downing her champagne all at once.   
  
“It was an old injury, gone now,” he says. “Are you quite alright, Miss Swan?”  
  
“I’m in a fucking  gown  at a ball where I’m the center of attention, and the king’s locked up all the good booze!  _No I am not alright!_ ”  
  
Belle laughs and takes Emma’s hand. “Not in Kansas anymore, either. It’ll be okay. Everyone is still getting used to the change.”  
  
“Also, I brought some good whiskey,” Rumpelstiltskin adds, letting a flask poke from his pocket. “I might be persuaded to share.”  
  
“I am not afraid to say I’ll owe you one if you do,” Emma replies fervently. “Though I’m pretty sure my firstborn would have objections, so you’ll have to go for something else.”  
  
Rumpelstiltskin makes a face. “That boy would bring down the castle around my ears. No, I’m sure I’ll think of a suitable favor later in the evening.” He pours a good shot into her empty champagne glass. “Drink up, your parents are on their way over and the accusations of corrupting others’ morals is getting terribly old.”  
  
Emma rolls her eyes at him and downs the whiskey, just before Queen Snow White and King James glide up to them. There is a confidence in their movements that Mary Margaret and David never had, but Belle sees in the Queen’s face the same unabashed kindness that she saw the night Belle got out of the hospital and Mary Margaret offered half her bed. Belle curtsies to her, and Rumpelstiltskin bows in his usual sardonic fashion -he is not good at bowing to anyone, no matter what the situation- but Snow reaches out to clasp Belle’s hand and draw her close for a hug.   
  
“I’m so glad you could come. I’ve missed you,” Snow says, her cheeks pink with delight. “It’s hard, getting used to not living in a small town and being so close to my friends anymore.”  
  
“I’ve been so busy, putting things back in order,” Belle answers, “but I’ll see if Rumpelstiltskin can make something for me to come more often, so that it is not such a long trip.”  
  
“You’re trying to turn me into an inventor, aren’t you, dearie? I’ll have you know the flying carpet was  never a good idea.” A tray of champagne passes by, and Belle and Rumpelstiltskin both grab one. He gestures with his towards Emma. “What did I tell you, your majesties? Twenty-eight years, right on schedule. And Regina gone for good. I’m sure you’re just falling all over yourselves to reward me with land, titles, fair maidens...”  
  
Belle elbows him sharply. “Hey, your maiden is standing right here.”  
  
He makes a face at her. “Yes, but I need spares for roasting for dinner.”  
  
Snow White and James blanch. Emma squints at him. “It’s a quip,” Belle sighs. “He has the worst sense of humor.”  
  
“The dungeons are still present and hilarious,” King James points out.  
  
“I can’t take him out anywhere,” Belle complains to Emma and Snow.   
  
“And why would you want to?” Rumpelstiltskin muses. “All the best parties just have strange tiny food on sticks and massive quantities of sherry, which may as well be fairies’ urine.”  
  
“I think it is, actually,” says Emma. “I’m still figuring out this world, but I think that’s a distinct possibility.”  
  
“Always knew I liked you, Sheriff.” He smiles at her, and she breaks down laughing. “Say, your highness, are you still a sheriff here? Because I hear there’s a thief named Robin Hood out in the woods, spreading anarchist communist propaganda that you may want to be aware of...”  
  
“I am  _not _ arresting Robin Hood! I have seen  _Men in Tights_ too many times. It’s a losing game.” Emma looks down at her suddenly full champagne glass as if she can’t tell whether it was refilled by magic or not. (It was.) “But yes, I’ve taken over charge of the royal guard, so I guess that counts as Sheriff.”  
  
The band picks up the tempo, and Rumpelstiltskin looks to Belle. “Care to dance?”  
  
She smiles at him, all twinkles as he offers his arm. “In fact, I absolutely insist that we do,” she replies, and giggles like it’s a joke. They whirl away into the crowd of dancers, only visible by Belle’s gold dress, leaving their monarchs behind and bemused.  
  
“I thought they refused to talk to each other,” says James.   
  
“Please,” says Emma, “they were always very distinctly  not talking to each other. They’d go out of their way to end up in the same place and not talk to each other.”  
  
“She’s right, even I noticed,” agrees Snow, drinking her champagne. “Belle’s always been a bit crazy, though. The good kind, not the kind you should get locked up for, like she was. They’re probably good for each other. Look, there’s Kath- Abigail and Frederick. We should probably go say hi.”  
  
Emma stands there after her parents walk away, watching the dancers, til Ruby comes up (wearing a red strapless gown, naturally) and bumps her with her hip. “Hey hon,” she says, “you owe me a night out. I  told  you Belle and Gold wouldn’t get their shit together until after Storybrooke was levelled.”   
  
“Yeah, you win that one. Why aren’t you dancing?”  
  
“Well, the band refused to turn this party into a rave, I hate this dance, and I didn’t see you hitting on any of the guards, so I figured if I got the princess shaking what she’s got, it might liven things up a bit.”  
  
And Emma has had just enough of this party for that to sound like a good idea, so she gives Ruby a glare for bringing up the princess thing, grabs her arm, and dives into the middle of the crowd.   
  
“I’ll kick you if you tread on my feet again,” Belle tells Rumpelstiltskin, as Emma brushes past her, with Ruby (who sports a wicked grin) following.  
  
“Then I might just pick you up and spin you in circles,” he replies. “So, does this look like happily ever after?”  
  
Belle looks around, and sees her friends, her comrades in confusion from the breakdown of the curse, all gathered together. Henry is racing through the room with some girl his age in hot pursuit, and above them, birds (who seem to follow Snow everywhere) perch on the hundreds of strings of paper lanterns. She shoots a smile to a dwarf and a fairy sitting in the corner, holding hands. She looks back at the worn, dear face of Rumpelstiltskin. “I think this looks like the start of happiness,” she says, and kisses him.   
  
“SO MARRIED!” shout Ruby and Emma over the heads of nearby dancers, and Belle laughs, feeling as light as bubbles in champagne.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [shadows crossing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/376318) by [intrikate88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrikate88/pseuds/intrikate88)




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